Internal combustion engines for vehicles or work machines typically employ a fuel system that includes a fuel tank, a feed or priming pump, a high pressure pump, a high pressure common fuel rail, and a plurality of fuel injectors. The high pressure pump includes an inlet fluidly connected to the priming pump and fuel tank via a low pressure supply line, and an outlet fluidly connected to an inlet of the high pressure common fuel rail via a high pressure supply line. The common rail includes a plurality of outlets that are fluidly connected to fuel injectors via a plurality of high pressure supply lines. Fuel is drawn from the fuel tank by the feed pump and pumped toward the high pressure pump. The high pressure pump in turn pumps the fuel to the common fuel rail. Fuel is supplied to the fuel injectors from the high pressure fuel rail. In the case of a compression ignition engine, actuation of a fuel injector causes high pressure fuel to flow from the common fuel rail directly into the combustion chamber of the engine. This injected fuel is then mixed with air in the combustion chamber and combusted by the heat of compression during the compression stroke of the engine.
It is typical to use solenoid actuators at the inlet and/or outlet of the high pressure pumps to control the opening and closing of the inlet and/or outlet valves, and thereby control the fuel volume passing through the inlet and/or outlet valves to control the supply of high pressure fuel to the high pressure rail. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,446,610 to Mazet discloses a system for controlling the pressure in a high pressure common fuel rail, which includes a high pressure pump having a solenoid actuated valve at the inlet of the high pressure pump for controlling the volume of the fuel that passes through the pump inlet and into the pumping chamber. The opening and closing of the inlet valve is controlled to supply the pump chamber with a volume of fuel equal to the sum of the fuel mass to be injected into the combustion chambers of the engine. The delivered fuel volume at least partially compensates for a pressure difference between the measured fuel pressure within the common fuel rail and a target pressure.
In order for the high pressure pump to function properly, the current driving the solenoid actuator of the inlet valve of the high pressure pump must be applied in the correct sequence or phase. However, in industry, electrical leads used for supplying the driving current to the solenoid actuator may be mistakenly connected to the wrong actuator, and thus the current may be applied to an actuator in a reversed phase, which in turn, results in a high pressure pump having actuators that do not function properly. Conventionally, this situation is detected and corrected by adjusting the hardware components, for example, physically changing the electrical lead connections or manufacturing different leads and lead connectors between actuators. The traditional hardware measures to correct this crossing of the electrical leads add significant cost and complexity to the product.
The disclosed control system and method are directed to making improvements over prior systems.